Skyrim Romance Mod 1/27/2015 Apology Letter

Hello Everyone,

Recently there has been a lot of problems involving this mod. I would like to explain to everyone what really happened so that people stop making their own theories.

The honest truth is that about a year ago I decided to play never winter nights 2 and I downloaded the romance mod. After I finished playing I was extremely inspired by it and I decided to make a mod for a game that I absolutely love: Skyrim. My initial idea was to make a romance mod for skyrim based solely in Bishop from NWN2.

I begin by learning how to mod and I started to solicit voice actors. I received many responses and auditions. Eventually I found Jonah Scott. He was exactly was I was looking for and so the whole project began. As time went by people started to contact me about getting involved with my project and before I knew it, I had around 30 people working on my Skyrim Romance Mod (Voice actors, writers, and audio editors).

What had started as a small mod with only one character (Bishop), turned into an elaborate mod with around a hundred new characters. This mod took me 10 months to complete. I uploaded the mod to nexus on December 25, 2014, but because I did not ask for permission to use some of the textures on my mod, it got taken off. Several days later I got permission to use the textures from other modders. I re-upload the mod and it became very popular very fast.

It got so popular that I got inspired to make another mod, but this time something double or triple the size. I was so amazed of the fact that my mod exceeded my expectation in regards to how many people liked it. I got so ambitious about making my next mod, that I realize that I was going to need a bigger team anywhere from 50-80 people. Even though the people that had worked on my mod never asked for money, I figured that because this project was going to take such a long time and it was going to be so large, some people might have bailed out in the middle of the project.

I was mostly concerned about the voice actors, it was going to be extremely time consuming because of all the lines they needed to record. I figured that if I could give them an incentive I could get them to commit to this large project. And so I decided to start a kickstarter campaign for $50,000 . None of my team member knew about this. I decided to keep it a secret so that they would not expect anything in case it did not get founded, nor did I want to get their hopes up. While I began the kickstarter campaign my team was already working on an update to the mod.

I want to let everyone know that I was not being greedy when I decided to start the kickstarter campaign nor was I aware that it was illegal. I jumped on to this mod and I honestly never read none of the terms and conditions of Bethesda creation kit, nexus mods, or kickstarter. I was not aware that I could not add a paypal link to nexus and ask for donations, I figured that because they offered the Paypal donate button on the mod’s page, it would not be an issue.I actually tried to use Nexus’s paypal donate button but I was unable to figure it out.

The day after my kickstarter got up and running I started to receive hate messages on nexus about it being illegal and that it was against nexus rules. When I read the messages I was at work. After quickly searching online I realized that I was in fact doing something that was not allowed. I decided to cancel my kickstarter when I got home later on that day. By the time I got home, which was around 6:00pm pacific time , I went on kickstarter and canceled the funding for my project. I then tried to log in to nexus but I found that my mod had been banned. The reasons for it were the following: Paypal link on the description of my mod on nexus, kickstarter, deleted comments that warned me about kickstarter.

To everyone that thinks I did this knowing about the rules, I will like to say that I absolutely did not. I had my doubts about using NWN 2 characters but I figured since it was distributing the mod for free that it would not be a problem. About the messages that I deleted from nexus, the truth is that I had been deleting messages for a while. I deleted all the hateful messages I got (and I got a lot). Since this mod was up and running there was so many people just bashing it, that I decided to ignore those people and just allow comments from people that actually liked the mod.

Edit 1/29/2015: I also had my doubt about using lines from Gibberlings3 Mod. Because indeed I copied lines from this mod without asking for permission.

Edit 2/06/2015: I have removed all 4 flirts descriptions I had taken from Gibberlings3 Mod. I still want to credit this old mod because it inspired me to make Skyrim Romance Mod.

After I got banned from nexus, I messaged Vampire Dante (Nexus Admin) who banned me, and I apologized and asked how I could fix my problem. He did not reply to me so I went in the chat room to try to speak to him but my account did not had permission to be on the chat room (He had blocked me). Since this mod is so important to me, I made a new account, not to deceive anyone but just to chat with Vampire Dante, I even used my name (Mara Lightfeather) so that he would know who I was. Instead of being able to chat with him, he immediately blocked my account and even my ip address. I understand that I made a very bad mistake almost inexcusable but Vampire Dante was a total Jerk. He did not even allowed me to explain myself. He even went on my website and started to leave really hateful messages and even calling people that liked my mod: Psychopaths.I know it was him because he posted a comment on my website, calling me dumb for trying to make a new account (Only he new about this since he had not made the public announcement on nexus yet). I found this extremely disrespectful and unprofessional.

Edit 2/29/2015: After following closely with a reddit blog, I could be wrong about Vampire Dante (Nexus Admin). I believed it was him, because I got a message from someone that knew about my attempt to make a new account. This was like 5-10 minutes after I had try to do so. I was not aware that Vampire Dante had made the announcement so quickly. Because I am unsure at this point of who actually wrote the messages that I was blaming Vampire Dante for doing, I will like to apologize to Vampire Dante and to Nexus for my assumption.

One last thing that I want to clear up is my profile picture and my name. Yes I used a fake picture and a fake name. Since my announcement of this mod, there was a lot of people that were very excited but also people that were extremely hateful. I chose to use a fake picture and name, and after the mod was released I was planning to reveal my true identity. The problem was that there was too many hateful people even after I released my mod, so I just decided to stay anonymous. I did not want people finding my facebook, where I live, my phone number and where I work.

I apologize to all the people that believe that I had some sort of deceitful agenda. All I wanted to do is to create a mod like no other. I apologize for being naive and not fully reading the rules for Bethesda, nexus, and kickstarter. I now realize that I was very wrong for doing what I did. I want to apologize to the people that send me warning and deleted their comments, but I do want to let you guys know that I followed your advice but by the time I did, it was too late (All happened in a span of 6 hours). I know now the rules for the use of the creation kit from Bethesda. I will start working on a new mod, as of now my plan is to make a mod based off of Cael and a couple new characters. I will keep it 100% original. I learned my lesson and I will not make these mistakes again.

Some of you know but for the people that do not, I will like to inform you that several of the new writers, and Jonah Scott (Voice of Bishop) , which were going to work on the update for the mod, left the team since they also found it deceitful that I did not inform them of the Kickstarter Campaign and the characters that I used on the mod that were created based on NWN2. The rest of my team that worked on the past romance mod have stayed.

Edit 1/29/2015: There was about 12 new people that were going to work on the update to my mod. 3 people from this group had helped on the last mod. When my whole new team found about the mod being banned, they wanted to get an explanation so I chatted with them through Skype. All but one of these team members were questioning me on why I had done what I did and why they though it was very wrong. They kept pointing out that I had plagiarized copyrighted work and that it was very wrong. I was very hurt by everything that had happened that day and on top of that I realized that the even though I thought of all this people as friends they started to slowly turn on me. I do not blame them for doing so. Their actions are completely warranted. Non the less, it hurt me a lot. After I had a sort of heated discussion with one of team members that had worked on the last mod in a small part, that person decided to leave and others followed. Again, there is nothing wrong with them doing so. Eventually I was left with about 9 people that actually came to me to become a part of my next update. After chatting with them for a while, most of my new team members wanted me to agree not do anything with the mod unless I consulted with them first. At this point I realized that not even the people that had worked on the last mod expected me to do so, so why did I have to share everything with them. Though this might sound a bit self-fish the truth is this. I planned the mod and worked very hard to make it a reality. I solicited voice actors, writers, I did youtube interviews, I made the website. I worked very hard to make it appear on google’s first page. But I had a few new people the felt entitled to make decisions on my mod. It was a pleasure for them to become part of my team of writers for my next update but only for writing. All the other decisions regarding the mod were mine to make. At this point I decided not to continue working with the remainder of my new team of writers. There was two people however that I wanted to keep working with me (One agreed and the other turned me down for a very good reason).

I still have working with me 27 of the 30 team members that worked in my last mod. Including several new people that had also asked to be a part of it.

Two of my old team members that are no longer with me, were amazing for helping. Jonah worked really hard and did an amazing job voicing bishop. Sarah, who helped me to correct a lot of the writing, also worked very hard . I thank you for you time, and quality of work.

I want everyone to know, this is 100% true. Some people want to make their own theories of what were my real intentions and just be hateful, but like any other human, I make mistakes and that is all it was. I made a huge mistake because I did not take the time to read all the terms and conditions from Bethesda, Nexus Mods, and Kickstarter. I accept all responsibility and all the consequence that come with it. Hope that you can all understand what happened better.

I am working on this mod not for greed but because I want to incorporate romance with skyrim and share it with everyone. It is just a hobby for me and I really enjoy doing it.

Though the new Skyrim Romance Mod will not be as big as I was hoping it to be it will still be a lot of fun, and full of romance for everyone that likes it.

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68 Comments

It takes a lot of guts to apologize on the internet. Especially after receiving so much hate for make one mistake. I applaud you. You seem nice, and you have guts and determination. It’s an internet thing. I’m a member of a forum and people jump down your throat quickly, or if you make a mistake, everyone wants to correct you. And there’s a lot of bashing.

Please continue to make mods. I’ve heard a lot of rave reviews. I’m downloading and trying this as we speak.

Wow, I’d never thought a mod could make a drama this intense. I just found out this mod and haven’t really use it, though I already download it. It looks promising. After I read your explanation, I’m feeling sorry for all you’ve been put through. People could be an asshole. Sure you’ve been done wrong, but it doesn’t mean people could be an assbag on it. And here I thought modders are people who want to share happiness by sharing their hard work. I just want to let you know Mara, your works are appreciated 🙂 . Thank you for your hard work and honesty

i am sorry for all that has happened to you and i wish i could help but just know that I think your only human I may not have downloaded your mod (skyrim crashes due to conflicts of other mods) i seen videos of it and it was wonderful

Holy shit… I didn’t know it was this intense… But I commend you for sticking to your goals and keeping up the good work on this wonderful mod ^-^ Through it all , you were strong enough to keep going with the mod to make it better 🙂 Good luck Mara!!

P.S. I could voice act for Wilson but I don’t have a mic and I don’t know about the one on my laptop, but I’ll probably find a way. Also I don’t know if this is considered a job or something cause I may be a little too young for jobs haha.

It comes down to the fact that unfortunately, some people, (particularly self entitled internet assbags) have a tendancy to enjoy blowing a lot of hot air. Someone makes a mistake; they act as if that person committed murder, telling you as much over and again and when the dust settles for them to realise that it was just a misplaced good agenda, well ‘oh no, we couldn’t possibly admit that we may have assumed exorbitantly more than what actually happened, no no, we didn’t make assumptions!’ They couldn’t possibly show such humility.

Internet trolls are the worst kinds of people and complete cowards. While it certainly sounds like you made a heavy mistake the very fact your stating desperately, with such humility and ownership that you didn’t mean it proves to me enough that your alright.

I didn’t even know for Bishop 😮 I’m sorry to learn what happen with nexus and for all the haters… I saw a lot of hatefull article on some blog about your romance mod…. Well, it’s their problem, them miss something awsome ^-^ I hope you will still strong and continue your good work, and know it will be awsome at the end 😀 Good luck Mara!!!

It sounds like you just went through hell from Nexus!! I remember being blocked from chats or something at one point, for a reason that was so dumb I don’t remember what set them off. I eventually got it fixed, I was luckily able to contact a moderator who would actually listen.

I can tell by your letter that you are a really nice person. Just keep in mind that interacting over the internet is blind. You didn’t deserve what happened to you, and I am sure if it was face-to-face they would have taken the time to hear your explanation and I am sure they would agree with me! Just keep in mind that just as it was impersonal the way they only looked at what rules were broken, it was also impersonal that they banned you: you aren’t a bad person! Don’t beat yourself up! Its amazing how much we can be punished by trying to do a good thing (No good deed goes unpunished) but your heart is obviously in the right place, and you’ve done no real harm.

And don’t worry about the hate-mail. On the internet, the nail that stands out will be hammered down. Everyone trying to create something unique, new, different etc. will draw haters.

So thanks to you and your team for all your hard work! Thanks for uploading it for us outside of Nexus!

I was wondering where you were. I had placed Romance into my modlist earlier this year, though due to Skyrim technical issues, the playthrough never really took off. Lo and behold, I have come a few months later to play again, and your mod was one of the mods that I looked forward to using, so I did a google search.

Anyway, I had no clue that you went through so much (I had left Skyrim for a few months). Reading your post, I think it was wise that you used a fake name and picture. With the gaming community as it is now, using an alias is of utmost priority. Never release your official contact information, always use a just-for-gaming email, etc.

Also, people tend to be jealous at their core. Humans aren’t perfect. When you used Kickstarter, one of the reasons that were probably often held, but not told, was jealousy. An indie dev I know was deeply insulted by his home community partially because of this. It was a project for a few ten thousands; over 5 times the original goal (it looked like a lot, but when you think about it, it’s about 1/3 of a year’s worth of salary when divided by team members). Although some people may think about long-term consequences, most people are irrational and emotional and simply disguise their passion-filled words with borrowed, rational arguments. If anything has money involved, then their irrational sides appear, without understanding the logic behind it. It’s a reflex reaction. Human nature. There has been increasing acceptance of it, however, within the past few years, on a few large (but well-moderated vs. Nexus) gaming sites, though some communities have not progressed. Not saying that you didn’t make a mistake, but others’ hatred towards you is unwarranted. Even if a project is undertaken for money, that itself is not evil. Such a way of thinking is outdated in the modern internet landscape (should have died around 2010).

Regardless, it is good to see that you are doing well. I hope all the best for you.

I was starting to wonder why I couldn’t find the mod on nexus, and I was extremely upset to find out what had happened to this mod. I was seeing all of this hate and slander going on, and I wasn’t sure what to think of you or this mod. I didn’t want to believe you were what they were making you out to be, for as they say, don’t believe everything you see on the internet, right?
I loved this mod for what it was, even though going into it I knew that a few characters weren’t exactly “original”. I was upset to find out that you put up a false image of yourself, but I understand what it was for. I am, however, glad you were mature enough to be honest about your mistakes and openly apologize about them, and you are being level-headed in a tough situation. And I must say I respect that, and I still hold you and this mod in very high regards.
I am sad that Jonah is no longer voicing Bishop because the voice is part of the character, and even changing that much makes it a different character completely, and I had grown attached to Bishop’s character. But I also understand that some things must be lost, and I am still looking forward to everything this mod can be and will become in the future.
I support you and your whole team in moving forward, and I am very grateful that even after all that has happened, most of the team is sticking with you so that this can become something big. I have stumbled across so many mods that could have been so much, but were just completely abandoned, and I was afraid that was going to happen here. Like you said yourself, there aren’t other real romance mods out there, and to see the only one of it’s kind go up in smoke would have been very upsetting. But I am so happy it didn’t, and I definitely look forward to what you guys create, I’ll be keeping an eye out for new content from you. All the best of luck 🙂

It takes a lot of courage to reach out like you have here. I’ve only just found your mod, and I have no clue as to the obstacles you’ve recently surpassed. The Nexus is an amazing phenomenon, but they can be rather harsh with matters like this. And personally, I have never understood why people care whether you wish to remain anonymous or not. It’s a dangerous world, especially for women, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to protect yourself.

I have also never understood why people feel the need to be rude or cruel with their comments when they don’t like something. If you don’t like it, you’re free to choose not to interact with it. Why is there a need to say anything about it? Of course everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but the internet makes it far too easy to be an obnoxious ass. Don’t pay any attention to them. They’re probably just wrestling with their own “short comings” and feel threatened by this mod.

I wish you all the best, and I look forward to experiencing this amazing project!

Me and people who would appreciate your hard work and kindness for sharing it are with you. As a female character player, I was extremely happy when I found this mod on January 1, 2015. Since that day I was expecting update and when I found out that your mod is no longer on nexus, I was like ” What the hell happened ? ” Now you had explained all and I believe every single word of your apology letter. Please keep up the good work of future update for there are a lot of female dragonborn out there like you. But you are the special female dragonborn for creating and giving us romance in our fantasy skyrim world. I thank and respect you and your team.

To Anyone Thinking of Downloading:
If you’re ultra-modded unrealistically-sexy lady-dragonborn is looking for a new level of immersion, you’ve just found it. Have total strangers marvel at your fabulous-ness and admire your prowess in battle. Be prepared to experience the complexity of mixed signals, jealousy, sexual tension, mass murder, and potential rape–just like dating in real life! It should be noted that some of the scene scripting is very “lady-porn” esq in nature (for those who’ve read such things you know exactly what I’m referring to). Nonetheless, come on ladies, we all know deep down we’re dirtier than half the male players–it just so happens we enjoy adding creative atmosphere with ridiculous amounts of adjectives to set the mood.

To Anyone Thinking How Weird This Mod is:
That kind of narrow-minded viewpoint belittles the foundation of modding: each person can modify their game as they see fit, the sky is the limit. Moreover, there’s a sea of sweet hot eye candy female followers available for Skyrim. Very few are custom voiced, even less of them feature personal story driven quests–and only the smallest handful feature a personal interest in the player (“Vilja” and “Arissa” are the only two that come close to featuring the same amount of depth as this mod). So to see a MALE follower that hits all of those bases is beyond rare. You may not like it, but you can’t deny that it’s well made. Thus, unless you can do better, please refrain from any slander against the mod creators; when it’s obvious how hard they worked. Lastly, if you can do better, for the love of god make a follower that looks like Emma Stone–I promise I’ll marry the shit out of her. Along with Bishop.

To The Mod Authors and Voice Actors:
You guys are amazing. Props for thinking outside the box of nexus modding and having the collective balls to release it. I’m sad to read about the mistakes that lead to this mod being taken off the nexus, I hope you’ve learned a good lesson that might be applied to future releases as you guys seriously deserve recognition for your work. So here I am to cheer you on and voice my hope for any updates and/or future projects of a similar nature. If this could inspire a new wave of mods aimed more at female players, I’d be overjoyed beyond belief. But….I’m not holding my breath on that one. For now I’ll just enjoy the mod you’ve shared with us–thank you!

I’m also a fan of Neverwinter Nights 2 and was excited to try this because the main character was based on an idea from that game. I did think it was a little jarring/immersion-breaking to hear the difference in some of the lines in-game, but I had no idea a huge ordeal was going on behind this. I just wanted to let you know that I thought it was really admirable the way you handled the backlash of everything. I can empathize with you because I know how it feels to pour your soul into a project over a period of time only to have it all shut down at the end. But you seem to be handling it with grace. I can also relate to acting with the best of intentions then finding out later it was actually a terrible idea. It sucks. But you learn and grow and get on with things 🙂 That is the way of life.

I really hope you continue to build and grow as a modder because I think you really have talent and I would love to see some future projects. I was kinda hoping for more updates to make this mod less linear and more sandbox-ish like Skyrim itself (like more dialogue options :P), but either way I wish you good luck in everything! Just wanted you to know there are people out there that know how you feel and still love your work and support you.

I was afraid something like this had happened after I couldn’t find the mod on Nexus anymore. Sorry to hear you had to experience so much petty drama, after all the work you put into this project. Please, don’t let this setback discourage you! Personally, I liked Cael best and I believe you’ll do a great job of coming up with your own characters. Thank you for all your hard work! It goes without saying that I look forward to your next mod.

Oh honey, I love your team’s hard-worked mod very much! I am sorry to hear you went through a lot of this. I know a lot of people would just up and leave the community after something like this happened. But you are a brave soul indeed and an honest one to apologize and make amends. Kudos to you and your team. Moving on, I’m excited to see a much more in-depth story plot with Cael. I honestly find him rather interesting, and I was sadden that currently we can’t flirt or do anything but a short quest with each dood minus Bishop. It’s ok, modding like this takes A LOT of time, effort, and if anything money. I’ll cheer for you and your team! I’ll be looking forward to the next installment. 🙂
Good luck, and I hope everything goes well for you and your team!~

I have been trying to find this mod on Nexus for the past couple hours!! I knew I’d seen and tracked it and I thought I was going crazy when I couldn’t find it! I’m behind you 110% on this! I wish you all the success in the world! I’m downloading this now, I can’t wait to dive in!

I am behind you 100% Mara, I love love LOVE your mod! It is awesome and wonderful and simply amazing. I’m a guy, and have played a few of the female romance companion mods, and have been disappointed at the lack of male companion romance mods, and then I saw yours and was so happy! I was going to download it when I got home, as I was out and on my ipod when I saw it, and was very sad to see that it was gone, and i had no idea what had happened till I found this today. I have read through your whole letter, and I am sorry that some of the people on the nexus have no right being there or part of the internet community in general (if you’re gonna hate, get off the net and don’t be an asshat) We all make mistakes and learn from them, and we move on from them more wiser than before. Keep your head-up and I look forward to any updates and new mods you put out! I also really love this mod and enjoy playing it, (and my female Dragonborn is enjoying all the attention too ^-^ )

I think it’s a such a shame such an excellent mod has been taking of the Nexus because of a misunderstanding. I look forward to your new mod, and would like to thank you for the Skyrim Romance Mod. It’s excellent.

I support this mod 100% and I look forward to the next one. I do want to say that as someone who knows Vampire Dante and is a friend of his (though it has been awhile since we have talked) I doubt that he is the one who made the rude comments. He is a very extremely decent guy and I doubt he would do that. Whoever did do it though is rude!

Thank you for that very honest and sincere letter. It was weird… I checked into Nexus one day to see how the Romance mod was doing for file of the month.. and *poof* it had vanished. I then ran a search, and it didn’t show up. That led me to Googling your site again, and I saw bits and pieces of what had happened. Suffice to say, I was very disappointed; mods aimed at female players are sooo sorely lacking for Skyrim. I guess, having played NWN2 and the romance mod in question… I wasn’t too sure about the blatant use of the material there; you are obviously a talented person and you have no need to employ content created by others. However, you have apologised for that and your other mistakes, and I wish you all the best.

As an aside:
I’d hardly consider myself a feminist, and I despise Anita Sarkeesian and her coterie of followers… but sometimes Nexus really does make me wonder if they are to some degree right. Based on the umpteen nude female body mods, skimpy “armour” mods, and countless melon-chested, vacuous female companions up there…. Based on the initial hostile reaction you received because oh woe.. oh sob… you were “unfair” and didn’t direct this to heterosexual males (despite numerous romanceable female mods out there)…
I don’t know, one really does start to walk away with the sense that there are a significant number of male gamers who want to keep gaming as an exclusively male preserve.
I only hope Sarkeesian and her crew of hangers-on never discover Nexus… because the place would actually give them real fodder.

Yes it wasn’t right to do, but owning up to it and trying to apologise and fix everything-at least this much-is very brave and honest, I personally am in love with the mod-especially jonah/bishops voice (which is a shame due to the fact he left the project) but anyway, the hard work, love, dedication put into the mod is amazing.

Thank you so much for creating this amazing, outstanding mod, shame about what happened, but everybody makes mistakes, often few even try to fix or make up for it so well done. Looking forward to the future of this brilliant mod!

Like many fans of your mod said, we truly appreciate your honesty. Don’t worry, there will always be insecure and bitching haters who didn’t get their favourite daily dose of princess cake in the morning, just ignore them and keep your head high because we who love your work, got your back on this. The road to the success will always be bumpy, but the result and quality of the work is the most important and all that matters to us. I hope you’ll continue with Bishop too, get him another VA or something if his original VA doesn’t get a change of heart. I for one (and a huge fan of NWN), would not mind hearing a different voice if it’s as good as the original’s acting, because the whole idea and thought of importing all this to Skyrim is enough to make my day already. Keep it up!

Everyone makes mistakes it can’t be helped 🙂 there their so we can learn from them…. like othere people said at least you told the truth and Mara your work was brilliant no matter the circumstances 🙂 plus your a very nice person from my point of view I’m still grateful that you toke the time to email me back even though it was two silly questions haha 😀 and P.S i support your project you done and your future ones and hope to see some amazing work. TBH if i was old enough i would jump on a train/bus to come and help in anyway haha 😀

And I hope this new mod dosen’t overrides your first one because Jonah is a great voice actor and Bishop is amazing follower and personally i would be heart broken if he’s gone 🙁

BUT EVEN SO!!! keep your head high you have great ideas and personally I love it and haven’t lost any respect to you or your mods 😀 but you can count on this ill be installing your new mod the moment it comes out and thats a promise ^-^

I think admitting mistakes and apologizing was very mature of you. c: You’ve learned now, you can be more careful in the future! And now, you know that the people who stayed will stay through thick and thin.

Vampire Dante’s response was very rude and unprofessional (if that was them, of course), but as others have stated, nexus and the mods on the nexus are known for being a little backwards and unprofessional.

If people aren’t willing to listen to your apology and acknowledge that you have owned up to your mistakes, then that’s their loss. This was your first mod after all, and the rest of us completely support you and look forward to more updates in the future!

I’m really excited to see this project take off. It sucks that this mod gets so much hate. If this were a huge mod with the sole purpose of putting every female npc in Skyrim in sexy lingerie that somehow magically doubles as armor, it wouldn’t get half as much hate (I’m talking about the hate before the kickstarter incident). Keep at girl, I’ll make sure to be the first person to download the next version!

Mara, just keep your head up girl! There will always be people who are going to hate and not listen, sure it can get discouraging but I for one loved the mod and am looking forward to any future mods you create

I really feel bad for what happened to you. But unlike most people, you made the best of it, and I hope you continue to do so. Like every other human on Earth, you made (unintentional) mistakes. It’s a shame the Nexus didn’t allow you explain yourself and apologize. Not letting hateful commenters back you down makes you a very strong woman, and I hope everything will go well for the development of your next mod.

Hopefully this won’t discourage your work at all; every ambitious project experiences setbacks whether self-created or not. The main thing is to learn from your mistakes & simply become stronger & wiser for it. Judging by the outpouring of support I see here, your adoring fans are behind you. Just get up, brush yourself off & keep going!

I really don’t understand how it’s okay for people to donate to modders via Nexus, when they state, “Donating money to a user is a nice way to show appreciation for their work or efforts and to help support and encourage them” which was all that you were asking but what you did was against the rules and so horrible? I’m pretty confused about that part.

I really hope that this doesn’t discourage you from continuing your work, there are so little mods for females in the community, and despite any problems this mod is still phenomenal and one of my favorites of all time!

oooh im going to miss Jonah he was exeptional in the mod and brought a new life to a game I was about to delete thank you, Mara for bringing this life to a game otherwise made for a lot of guys(not to be sexist in anyway) I and probably many many other with miss him, we can only hope he has a change of heart >//<

Well, I am gonna be honest here. No matter what you do, someone is gonna get bitchy about it. That being said, I think you did a great job. And while yeah, you had a few screw-up, they were honest mistakes and you owned up to the, and tried your best to fix it. Personally, I enjoyed the mod, I thought it added something much needed to Skyrim. My only real complaint is that it does cause some conflicts with a few other mods of buildings and whatnot (I am thinking the Bannered Mare, personally, but I am sure there are a couple of things that it might have issues with). But any mod is going to have that, so it is not a huge deal breaker or anything.

Despite everything else, you put so much time, effort, and care into making this mod and it really shows. I hope that all of this does not disuade you too much from working on the next one, after you have had a good break to get away from the whole situation and recenter yourself. Good luck on your future work, and I hope to see more from you.

I’m so sorry this happened to you. Your heart was in the right place and it would have been nice to be able to compensate your team.
It’s sad that certain people can’t see that, but it’s also good because you get to see who is loyal, understanding, and forgiving. Also, this means you’re able to educate others who are similarly inspired.
Learning from mistakes brings success, so keep up the good work 🙂

This would be an awesome mod. If I could turn my computer on. There was a problem with the crystal ball loading screens and I then had to turn off my computer. Now when I turn it on I get a blank screen any help?

Ah, I feel bad that this comment is so late! Usually I’m checking this every day and writing down at least one comment for yah. I’ve been a busy bee, sadly @-@ Honestly, Mara, I think it’s amazing that you said this out loud to all of your fans, knowing that they may turn you down because of it. Unfortunately, we’re all human. We make mistakes and it’s how we learn! Why, if we didn’t make silly mistakes as these, how else are we supposed to gather this beautiful knowledge for the future. It’s like stealing a cookie in order to find out stealing is bad, or even interrupting someone while they’re talking only to find out that what they did was rude. I think you’re inspirational. So many have left because of something you did, and yet you keep kicking! That itself shows how much strength you have in you. Because, even though this mod is still rather popular (as you can see for your loyal fans down there in the comments!), I’m sure it’ll get more hate now that you’ve become so open about your past mistakes. But, that’s just what they are! Mistakes that happened in the past; mistakes I’m sure you’ll keep an eye out for next time! While I do have school and my future in art to worry about, I would absolutely love to help with voice acting or writing should you need it! Saaaadly, I don’t have all of the things I need for voice acting (as you’ve heard from me MAAAANY times coughcough) at this MOMENT, but very soon will I have them! This mod has so much potential despite all of the hard times it’s been going through. Wonderful people will come and go, but I do hope you stay the same, yeah? Anyway; enough rambling from me! Don’t beat the living shit out of yourself, you hear!?

It is an awesome mod, and I am still looking forward to the future updates. It took a lot of courage to post this update, and to own your mistakes. Good luck! Face Forward and Move into the next Chapter.

Awe…..I just saw this and it makes me sad that so much drama went down. Mara this is an awesome mod and I love it I hope that you will continue on with it despite all that’s happened. I truly feel that you are sorry for what you did and honestly I probably would have made some of those same mistakes. But people aren’t perfect and we learn from our mistakes. I am glad that some of your team is still sticking with you through all of this, its sad that however you did lose the voice of Bishop. But however the voice can always be replaced if need be. I cant wait to for new content to be out on this, it will be exciting. Thank you to you and your team everyone has done such an excellent job on this mod.

I highly doubt you would have done what you did if you knew it was illegal, after all no one wants to be in that kind of mess. You’re human and we all make some stupid mistakes from time to time (I’m quite the offender in that area myself) so I do not believe for one second that you intended to be malicious or deceitful. Most importantly you’re explaining yourself and owning up to it. However NO ONE had the right to treat you the way they did, some of the comments were downright shameful; all anyone had to do was either let you know that it was illegal or report you to a moderator, that’s it. I really hope you submit a ban appeal to Nexus explaining and apologizing so that they reconsider and if they don’t, well it’s their loss. I also hope you don’t let this deter you because you really are quite talented and are filling a big void within Skyrim mods and gaming in general.

I actually saw some of the hateful comments right when the mod first went up just because it catered to women. If I’m being honest, I find some of the people who use Nexus to be extremely sexist and homophobic more than half of the time. I’m not referring to the kind and excellent modders themselves; I know it mostly comes from trolls, but man oh man, they sure can show up in abundance on that site. Even the new “males of skyrim” mod has gotten a lot of cruel comments that had to be removed…..why? Because the mod author dared to make the men in skyrim attractive. Really, as soon as one or two mods pop up for women or gay men it gets a ton of hate but I digress.

Anyway, I’m sure you’ve learned from your mistakes. Don’t beat yourself up too much over this; just pick yourself up, dust yourself off and try again. I honestly can’t wait for future mods from you and your talented writers!

Thank you for your honesty, it takes a lot of courage to admit everything like you did.Take what you learned from this whole experience and move forward. Sadly, there will always be people who want to be hateful. You did make several mistakes, but to me it seems you genuinely have learned from it and won’t repeat it again.

I agree with others that it was very evident you cared a lot about your mod and much work was put into it. I really enjoyed it for what it was and I am glad to hear you will be continuing with another mod. Keep up the good work and I look forward to it!

To error is human. We all make mistakes it’s just that SOME degenerates and idiots love to make a mountain out of a mole hill. Ignore them; they aren’t worthy enough to lick the spit off my boots. You did good Mara; I love this mod and its got me playing Skyrim more when it was starting to lose its charm.

To be honest I was completely unaware that all this drama was happening with this mod. Though by the sounds of it you truly didn’t know that what you were doing was wrong. (I wouldn’t have either, besides who really actually reads the tos of anything anymore? Just scroll and accept is what just about everyone does.) I hope this doesn’t deter you from continuing with your mod and Cael’s story. I know losing the voice actor for bishop must have been a loss for you and its a shame he jumped ship. But be grateful you still have a team who are sticking by you through this and they want to continue with this project. I will continue to support you even if the nexus being as callous as it has been as of late, or people who scream that your a monster. I know that you’re not and you have brought life to game that never really felt complete until now. Thank you and your team for such hard work, and I really look forward to your continuations of this mod! Please don’t stop, the heart you’ve put into this project can’t be given up on!

There is a reason so many of the modders leave the Nexus and head over to sites like Lovers Lab….jus’ sayin.
As for the whole situation, you live and you learn. I really, truly adore this mod. It saddens me that Bishop will no longer be voiced, as that means no more updates for him unless you essentially start over or Jonah changes his mind…but I am looking forward to seeing Cael’s story. As a side note, I had never heard of NWN2 before this mod, and your mod made me curious about it. As for using characters inspired from another series, if that is something to get in trouble for, the over half the modders on the Nexus should be banned. >_>

I wish you, and your team, all the best Mara. I look forward to seeing what directions this mod goes.

I don’t believe you did that on purpose ( there is nothing wrong about a donation button on Nexus, as long as the modder don’t actually ask for donations, and who never skipped some page full of terms and conditions without reading at all?) It was a honest mistake, you were blogging all the time about what you planned to do, i also never thought that it could be illegal too, probabbly i would had made the same mistake as you… But, c’mon, who really didn’t know that Bishop and the others were from NWN2??? I mean, they really didn’t know??? Anyway, i still love your mod and i still waiting for updates and a new one with the same excitement! Please, don’t give up!

It’s honestly so depressing that this turned out the way that this did. Back when you released it in December, and I first looked into this project, it really made me happy to see something so well put-together. I’m glad, that hopefully this drama is over, you explained your side of the story fully so people weren’t just hearing half of it, and admit that you made mistakes. My only suggestion now is to keep doing what you’re doing. Move on, and keep working. You’re doing good work with this mod, and the second release is bound to be even better than the first. I wish you the best of luck, Mara, and thank you for owning up to the things you did wrong.
You know what they say, just so long as you don’t make the same mistake twice, yeah?

You didn’t have to explain yourself as you have here and that is a huge step in getting past all this. It is unfortunate some left, but I have faith in you and your team. I will support this mod :3
Also, I’ve heard a lot about that particular admin, that’s shitty and I don’t particularly like how he behaved, seems immature and nexus is now at a lost on this mod. A shame.
I’m positive this will turn out huge and great in the end for you and your team and all who still support you guys.
Happy wishes- Cake

This isn’t the first time Nexus has done something like this. My good friend got banned all for saying a silly word he made up and it had no vulgarity in it either. I have no idea what is going on with the Nexus lately but it is starting to feel real totalitarian and unvisitable there. Sorry about what happen. Hopefully you will come out stronger from this mess.

“About all the messages that I deleted from Nexus, the truth is that I had been deleting messages for a while. I deleted all the hateful messages I got (and I got a lot).”

So, I don’t necessarily blame you for deleting trolls (that is, after all, why messages are deletable), but it bothers me that you lumped the warning messages in the “hateful” category. When people are letting you know that you’re doing something illegal, THAT IS NOT HATEFUL, no matter how angry they were. If someone knows you’re breaking the law, the options are 1. Report you, 2. Wait for you to be taken down, or 3. (by fat the kindest option) Let you know what you’re doing wrong. And the fact that you consider that to be worth deleting makes me really not optimistic for the future of this mod.

If you dismiss any comments or feedback that have anything negative to say, you’re preventing a lot of progress. Which is a shame, because Skyrim desperately needs some great romance mods.

I think it’s good that you owned up to what happened, and allowed a clearer picture to be shown.

However, a lot of people knew of you being banned. There is a page made on the Nexus each time someone is banned, and because of your name, it was quite easy to find. Many people saw it. It does not mean it was Vampire Dante, and without a full explanation like this, it’s hard to understand. Besides, there is no excuse for not reading the ToS. I know you wish you had and I know you apologize for it, but there’s nothing to do about it because that is your fault.

I recommend submitting a ban appeal (you can’t just PM or chat a moderator, you MUST submit a ban appeal) and writing an apology and explaining what you did. It may not be accepted, but a big thing about ban appeals is that you should own up to what you did and fully apologize, not make excuses (not saying you are, again).

I, too, jumped to conclusions and onto the “hate bandwagon”, as it were. I apologize as well. You made mistakes, and they were undoubtedly stupid, but you had your reasons and they’re good – even if a little misguided.

Hello 🙂 Thankyou for taking the time to explain. I didn’t really follow all this drama, I wasnt even aware there was a kickstarter until I saw all the bashing on comments on this site. I can certainly understand not wanting to share it with the team in case it doesnt go ahead, but even though it was against the rules, I don’t think it was bad, you had distributed the mod for free and any money received would have been a true donation.

Some of the things I’d heard seemed questionable, but if this was your first mod, particularly with how popular it turned out, it seems easy to understand that in all the excitement you maybe got a bit ahead of yourself. I would like to know who honestly does read terms and conditions for anything? Everybody knows they just scroll to the bottom and press accept. Does it make it right? No, but it happened, and its clear you just made a mistake.

I saw some of the nasty comments on the nexus page when it first came up and it made me sick, seeing people bashing you because the mod was made to target female players and characters instead of males. I saw the disgusting comments on this site which now seems to have been that mod? That’s just low, have a little professional courtesy- I don’t really blame you for deleting hateful comments. If it was deleting anything that just disagreed, sure that shouldnt be done, but I think you have every right to delete a comment if it was blatantly hateful and disrespectful.

Its a shame Jonah has left (such an amazing voice @_@), and I didn’t see anything wrong with using Bishop unless you were making money off it or claiming the character as your own, but I look forward to any updates with the mod and wish you all the best of luck 🙂 Its a very unique mod and fun, I’ve been having a great time playing with it (even though Karnwyr has a habit of standing precisely in a way to make me get stuck in tunnels, the wolf is a troll)

It’s sad that events spiraled so out of control, As one of the (possibly few) Males who love your work on this mod, I remain fully supportive towards this effort. there is still a lot of potential left in what this can become.

you made an honest mistake, You tried to correct it, and instead of getting a reasonable response, you were met with hostility.

again, as I stated back on the nexus, I look forward to the next update.

It sounds like you made an honest mistake. I think I would have done the same thing you’ve done ad far as kickstarter goes. I mean you want to pay your voice actors… It’s a brilliant idea on paper, but I guess using kickstarter would be a violation of copyright as technically your making a profit off of Bethesda Softworks intellectual property. Speaking of which, I wonder how Nexus gets around that regarding their premium memberships. Technically, you’re paying money to a company that hosts copyrighted material. But I’m diving into deep water, so I think I’ll stop.

And of course you wouldn’t want to announce team it unless you were sure something would come of it. “Hey guys, I might be able to pay you…oh, wait, never mind.” I also understand anonymity. There are some truly psychotic people out there. You have to protect yourself.

I’ve heard about Nexus’s unprofessional behavior before, but this seems extreme. You apologized, or at least attempted to, and your attempts cut short by someone who is obviously socially backward. You aren’t the first one who has experienced this and I’m sure you won’t be last.

I will download the mod. As I know how to install manually this shouldn’t be a problem.

I really hope something works out so your able to update this mod as well as work on the new mod. Ohh and how is it deceitful that your characters are based off of nwn2? Have these ppl never looked through mod companions? Sheesh I love that there based on nwn2 ppl personally I like your version of them better! Please ignore the hypocritically haters. They aren’t worth the time. I hope this new mod turns out bigger and even better then you expect! Also hope for more bishop even with a replaced voice and can’t not wait for Cael!

This still remains my absolute favorite mod. The drama that happened is unfortunate and is the result of a huge misunderstanding. I saw the NWN2 chars listed and was drawn to that immediately. I loved the NWN2 romance, but found it sad that it lacked, as it did with Skyrim.
I am a lover of romance novels and just absolutely adore how this mod makes my toes curl and squirm with delight.

Dear Mara, I just want you to know that no matter what some people may say, you and the whole team did a lot of great job that is truly appreciated. It’s heartbreaking to hear you went through such troubles on your journey of creating and releasing this wonderful mod. I am sure you had good intentions and didn’t want to deceit anyone. I hope you know that through all of this dark clouds above this project, there are a lot of people, enjoying your wonderful piece of work every day. I am one of those happy people. It blows my mind how much effort and heart you put into this project. And oh, it truly takes guts to make a clean breast of it all. I admire your courage and hope this experience will only let you grow as a person and you won’t stop fighting for your incredible work. Please, don’t ever give up!

I can’t believe you still have to deal with this high school crap.thank you for a the letter your an awesome person and mod is amazing! I love that ppl are on your case for a fake profile pic ha because NO one ever does that on the online……lol. Keep being awesome replace those who left and move on! Your good at what you don’t let anyone tell u other wise

Mara you are freaking awesome! Thank for this letter. I just wanted to say a couple things 1) seriously who freaking care if use used a fake profile for this! This isn’t a dating website ppl, and I love that ppl are on you for it when 98% of ppl on the internet do it! 2) I’m confused why ppl are in an up roar over some the charaters being based on nwn2 charaters, there are a tons of mods based on other charaters from games, anime ect I’ve dragon age, mass effect, naruto, Chuck Norris…….3) ya you made some mistake but it take a strong person to acknowledge that accept, the conquances and move on just as you are trying to do even with all the hateful ppl lashing out at you. Keep your head up girl.4) I’m sorry some of your team chose to leave, but that is their choice. Don’t sell your self your work short over that they can be replaced! Thank you again for this letter. Your mod is awesome as will your next one be I’m sure. I hope your able to update this one as well 🙂 keep up the good work

Thanks for explaining. I’m glad things seem to be evening out. I get what you say about the hateful comments before this went down – some people were just ridiculous, nasty, and rude. Not your thing? That’s cool, move on and keep your mouth shut. 🙂 Looking forward to your next creation.

Thank you for putting this out there to clear the air. I’m sorry that some people on the team left. I’m sorry that some will still make up their own ideas about what happened. You rock though and I have faith in you. 😉

I love your mod because I am a huge fan of NWN2. I downloaded it because I knew this and loved the idea. I had no idea that any of this was going on. I am very disappointed that there will be no updates for this now. Seeing my favorite NWN2 peeps in Skyrim is hilarious in a good way. This will still be my favorite romance mod because it was sweet, funny, and so well thought out. Thank you for it. :3

Ah, it’s a shame that all of that went down. 🙁 But I can see you have put your heart and soul into this project and are willing to change and learn from everything. I adored this mod from the beginning so I’ll definitively be looking forward to the new mod!

I think its wonderful that you realized and owned up to making a mistake and while it makes me sad that some of your team left I’m sure your new mod will take off like a shot! I”m also sad that the Nexus admins don’t like to listen, but this is not the first nor will it be the last time something like this happens… But to bad for them, they missed out on a wonderful mod!